


A Scientific Mind

by Shadowmatic



Series: Pride Month 2020 [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Magic, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowmatic/pseuds/Shadowmatic
Summary: Before Hermione learnt about magic, she learnt about science.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger & Ron Weasley, Ron Weasley & Harry Potter & Hermione Granger
Series: Pride Month 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771609
Kudos: 15





	A Scientific Mind

Hermione, long before she ever learnt anything about the true magic of the world, had learnt about science. Her parents were both avid readers, and Hermione followed in their footsteps, reading everything that she could get her hands on, from the newspaper to Roald Dahl to dentistry textbooks to Lord Baden-Powell. 

So when she found out about magic, most of the money they spent that first day at Diagon Alley was on books, which Hermione and her parents all devoured eagerly, trying to learn as much as possible about this new world that they had been thrust into.

Doing magic was even better than Hermione had ever imagined, and she wrote to her parents every week about new things that she had learnt, and eventually the nonsense that she and her friends got up to, though that was a little more edited. She didn’t want to worry them, and her parents were just as eager to learn about her friends as they were to learn about magic. 

Life at Hogwarts was interesting to say the very least, and Hermione, even once she got involved with Harry and Ron’s shenanigans, did a lot of research. Often Madam Pince would try to discourage her from taking out higher level books, in part, Hermione thought, because she was a Gryffindor, and there was a certain reputation, but she always brought them back. 

Hermione compiled a lot of notes over the course of her career at Hogwarts. She didn’t really know what she was looking for beyond answers to the age old questions ‘how?’ and ‘why?’. One summer as she was explaining some of her theories over the breakfast table as her mother joked that she was trying to explain hammerspace but she would actually find an answer. 

After school, after the war, Hermione got a research grant from the Ministry and dove even deeper into the question of the origins of magic. The library of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black was a useful resource, especially when looking for old texts. 

Many treatises on the origin of magic concluded that it had something to do with blood and Merlin and/or a god of some sort, and while using blood as a component of magic was a thing, Hermione didn’t think that magic itself had anything to do with blood or DNA. She was muggleborn after all, and she had always approached magic through an angle of science. 

She tried to make Punnet squares anyways. She gathered up records of the Potter, Weasley, Longbottom, and Lovegood families, and started to make her Punnett squares. 

“What’s with the squares?” Ron asked, coming into the office that Hermione shared with Neville early the next morning. He set a mug of tea on the desk in front of her. She looked up, scrubbing a hand over her face, and tucking her pencil behind her ear. 

“They’re called Punnett squares.” She hadn’t held much hope in the theory, in fact she was trying to prove that it had nothing to do with blood. “They’re meant to track alleles through lineage. Wizards make really shitty peas.” Ron laughed a little.

“Hermione dear, what you just said made even less sense than what Harry said when I asked him what he was working on twenty minutes ago.” Hermione frowned. She hadn’t seen Harry in a couple of days, in part because she was keeping odd hours. She hadn’t gone to dinner or to sleep the night before, and had gone down to the kitchen at about two to get something to eat. 

“Alleles are. It’s DNA. Magic might be a gene mutation.” Hermione said. “DNA tells your cells how to do what they’re supposed to do. I’ve heard it explained as the recipe book of life.”

“Cells?” Ron still looked confused, and Hermione cursed whatever wizard thought that keeping science and magic separate was a good idea. 

“Cells are what make up every living thing.” Hermione said. “You are made of cells, those plants are made of cells.” She gestured at the plants on the window sill. “Wait.” She searched her desk for her pencil before remembering that it was behind her ear and wrote ‘Wizards don’t have cells?’ on a scrape of paper. 

“I still don’t understand, but I’m going to bet that this is some muggle science thing that I should read up on.” He smiled at her. “Do you really think my peas are that bad? Because I can do them a different way?”

“What?” Hermione stared at him blankly. 

“You said that wizards make shitty peas.” Ron said, shifting his weight slightly. “So...”

“Oh.” Hermione laughed. “I really need to go to bed. There was a monk named Gregor Mendel who explained how alleles, which control traits like red hair, or maybe magic, work using pea plants before we even knew what DNA was. But if magic is an allele there has to be some other factor. It just doesn’t work.”

“So wizards are bad peas because we don’t explain DNA well?”

“Yes.” Hermione stood, swaying slightly, and Ron caught to her elbow. 

“Let’s get you to bed.”

“Thanks.” She yawned, leaning against him. He was nice and warm and she was asleep before her head even hit the pillow. 

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: cause and effect (from @cutequeerpositivity on Tumblr)
> 
> Did I spend part of my day trying to figure out if you could Punnett square wizards? Yes. Did it work? No. 
> 
> Also, how does conversion from muggle money to wizard money work? Do they pay for the amount of gold they’re buying or what? Because that doesn’t make any sense. What is the exchange rate for wizarding/muggle currency?????????


End file.
